Dragonfly

There is a swarm of dragonflies
darting across our backyard
and the neighbor's.

The swarm is entertaining, but I am
watching one. Rather, I am trying to
watch one, but it keeps disappearing.

Here then gone. Here then gone.
Hiding. No, that's not it. It is
merely in and out of my sight.

The dragonfly -oblivious to me -is going
about its business, darting where it may.
There just happens to be a fence.

I am irrelevant.
This is not hide and seek.
It's not like we're friends.

Making Mario Mushrooms or I Remember When This Seemed Like a Good Idea...

A while back someone mentioned making Mario mushrooms. So, I, of course...

1. "Huh?"
2. Googled
3. "OMG, they're adorable!"

I should really stop googling. Or learn some restraint. (I'm not posting the original photo because of copyright. Read: "Mine will look even more pathetic in comparison!")

So, three grocery stores and a few days later, I brought home the least sketchy bunch of the lot. This is the "Before" twitpic. I included the five intact fingers as a joke.

These radishes wanted to be mice. Note their shape and built-in tails. Too bad, little radishes. I have other plans for you Mwahahaha!!!! I removed the turning-slimy greens and stuck the poor little things in the fridge to begin their long, cold, neglected death. My husband put them in water after a few days. Several days later, with a blueberry pie inexplicably in the oven, and the kitchen mostly cleaned up again again, I thought of the poor drowned radishes and thought why not half-ass one more project tonight?

So, the not quite right shape, shriveling, turning clear radishes came out of the fridge and a not-quite-right-for-the-job paring knife came out of the knife block. Btw, you should be as distracted as possible when you do this. If you don't have small children to aid in the task, perhaps you have a pet that can climb all over you and preferably bite you at inconvenient moments. In between checking the pie 54 times, negotiating and doling out bedtime snacks and 23 other even less exciting things, I whittled away at the radishes. And, lo and behold...a fairy ring appeared!

I like crafty little projects. Especially with food. Especiallier when I ought to be doing something else. Especialliest if someone else will be amused. Oh well, two out of three ain't so bad. I guess.

Details and Glaring Omissions Regarding My Upcoming "Cocktails with a Literary Twist"

I know this clearly needs some work, so please let me know what you think!! :-D

WARNING: If you are purist when it comes to cocktail parties, literature or food, this will probably give you seizures. You have been warned.

So here's the deal, 5 of us at church auctioned off this Cocktails with a Literary Twist party. I'd say we mostly tend toward being creative and overachievers. We all have little kids. Put all of that together and this is pretty much shaping up to be a Trainwreck's trainwreck. (But in that fun-happy-yummy kind of laugh-about-it-later way.) ;-)

Cocktails
Champagne cocktails (probably with Chambord) as guests arrive, but not sure yet.
Hemingway’s Daquiris
Cherry martinis (more on this later)

I need to figure out some more drink options!!! Our pooled liquor cabinets include tequila, dark rum, spiced rum, cointreau, anisette, dry vermouth, maraschino, Bacardi white rum, creme de cacao (white), Chambord, kirschwasser and bourbon. I know we need to get vodka and champagne for sure. The cherry part of the cherry drink is coming from cherry syrup. (It's made out of cherries & cane sugar and comes in a big glass bottle like Monin coffee syrups.)



Punny Food (Yeah, maybe we should have been a little *less* clever with some of these)

Valley of the Balls (Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann) – goat cheese with honey cheese ball, some sort of cheddar-based cheese ball, and Moroccan meat balls

Cracker in the Rye (Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger) -

Tortilla Flat (John Steinbeck) – (Some kind of quesadillas featuring some of the 20 pounds of cheese in my fridge. Ha, I should throw in some of the drawers full of onions too!)

A Small Good Thing (Raymond Carver) – bacon-wrapped something

Grapes of Wreath (Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck) – a wreath of grapes

Clockwork Orange (by Anthony Burgess) - Pretty much a clock of orange segments, don't know what she's going to make the hands out of.

We were thinking Vegetable Farm (Animal Farm by George Orwell), but yeah, I don't know how that's going to work out. Suggestions appreciated!!!

Heart of Darkness (by Joseph Conrad) - I originally wanted to do "Tart of Darkness", but that'd be a bitch to make (for me this week) and it's just wrong for a cocktail party. So, now I'm thinking brownie-type-thingie in a heart-shaped pan.


And then to go with this Akhamatova poem ...

He loved three things in life:
singing at vespers, white peacocks,
and worn-out maps of America.

He did not love tea with raspberries,
or feminine hysteria....
and I was his wife.


...we'll have tea with raspberry preserves, and I'm thinking I'll make some Russian Black Bread. I was hoping to do more, but it looks like this will be it. Oh, and there's kind of a line missing in this translation. See, I wasn't lying about the warning up top. ;-)


Oh, and I've been trying to come up with a Cherry Martini to go with A. E. Housman and Dorothy Parker.

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now... by A. E. Housman (1859-1936)

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

Cherry White by Dorothy Parker
I never see that prettiest thing-
A cherry bough gone white with Spring-
But what I think, "How gay 'twould be
To hang me from a flowering tree."